Originally Posted by SK AAR

Thank you for reporting back.

Good to hear that TK took well care of your parents for arranged hotel, food and of course the rebooking of the flight.

In the reply of TK it seems that it took a lot of time for the aircraft to leave the gate at BKK and to reach the runway for take off. Does this correspond to your parents view of what happened? What were they told during the flight?

Nevertheless, I have checked the information available

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/tk59

As you will notice the flight took off from BKK at 09.35 - i.e. 15 min after the scheduled departure (from the gate) and in line with departures time the previous days. Nothing unusual there and certainly not a long airport taxi duration. What is unusual here and which most likely caused the flight time to exceed the normal flight time of 10h30min is the flight route; as you will notice the flight path was across India to Mumbai and south of Iran to Dubai before heading north through Iraq to Turkey. The normal flight path is north of Delhi and north of Iran crossing the Caspian Sea before reaching Turkey through Georgia, which is shorter (see the flight path for 30 Jan). What I can't see is the reason why this more southerly and longer flight route was chosen; prevailing (strong) winds?, congestion enroute? etc. Surely, TK has no interest in taking a longer and more fuel consuming flight path most likely there was a good reason for doing it.

Anyway, that leads me to the conclusion. The reason stated by TK in the reply doesn't seem correct and is inconsistent with the facts (the flight took of 09:35). I suggest to write back, maintaining the claim and stating the facts about departure time I have stated above. Write back and maintain the claim. Unfortunately, there is nothing unusual in airlines trying to brush off passengers claims by providing incorrect facts.